Welcome to the second post in my Publishing a Poetry Book series! Last week, I talked about what things to include in your manuscript. If you missed that post, you can check it out here.
I am a book formatting nerd. Even when working on my NaNoWriMo novel drafts that often will never move past the first draft stage, I procrastinate by editing the file into a print-ready version. I like pretty fonts and chapter headings and page numbers. If I had any experience embedding images and was sure they would print correctly, I might consider hiring myself out to format books for other people, but I don’t want the responsibility for making sure someone else’s book turns out the way they want it. I have enough confidence to do my own formatting but no one else’s yet. Still, I thought I would share how I do this.
I did record a video of my screen as I formatted a sample document, but the screen capture software did not show any of the drop-down menus where I selected the different options. You would have seen my document change but wouldn’t have seen what I clicked on to make that change. So, I have attached a template document made in Microsoft Word for you to download, pick apart, and experiment with. My apologies to those of you who don’t use Microsoft Word, but this is the best I could do.
Tip: Once you have the document open in Word, click on the Show/Hide symbol in the “Paragraph” section in the ribbon on the top menu. This will show all the hidden formatting I included, like where I included a page break rather than a section break.
Before You Begin
Before you begin making formatting changes to your document, save a copy! This will come in handy in case you make any mistakes and want to start over, and we’ll also need a copy without all this special formatting for creating the e-book version, which I’ll talk about next week.
Page Size
The first decision to make is what size you want your book to be. Take a look at some of the books you have at home and measure them. Six by nine inches seems to be the default size for most print on demand (POD) publishers, but I personally thought this was a little too big for my poetry book, especially when some of my poems were only about five lines long. I opted for five by eight, which is also an industry standard.
Since all I’m familiar with is Microsoft Word, those are the commands I’ll be using, but I think they should be similar across most word processing programs. To adjust the size of the page, go to Layout > Size > More Paper Sizes and type in the size you would like. Check the bottom of this menu to be sure the size change will be applied to “Whole document” rather than “This section only.”
Before you commit to a size, make sure it is an available option for every POD platform you want to use. If you have to change the size of your book for one platform, you will then have to change the size of your cover file to accommodate not only the new size but also the change in spine width if this results in more or fewer pages. It’s much easier to make sure you can upload the same files to every platform.
I have no experience with Ingram Spark. To my understanding, you need to provide your own ISBN to publish through them. Here in the US, one ISBN costs $125, and since I don’t expect even to make $125 from sales for my book, I didn’t want to spend the money. Publishing through Ingram Spark does allow you to make your book available on multiple sites, though. I published my print copies through Amazon’s KDP, Barnes & Noble’s Nook Press, and Pothi in India, so these are the three I’ll be talking about.
Margin Size
Each POD platform should have formatting guidelines that will tell you what size your margins should be, which depends on your trim size (the size of the page) and the number of pages. I think it’s better to have a larger margin than the minimum recommended, especially for poetry books where there is more blank space on the page than in novels. For my book, I used 0.75 inches all around, but next time, I think I will set the inside margin at 1 inch to keep the text from being so close to the spine.
To adjust margins in Word, go to Layout > Margins > Custom Margins. Before changing the size, change “Normal” to “Mirror margins.” This will allow you to set a different size margin for the inside (near the spine) and the outside, since left and right margins will be inside or outside depending on if you’re on an odd or even page.
Page Breaks vs. Section Breaks
Nearly every poetry book I’ve ever seen begins each poem on a new page. If you are not separating your book into sections and are simply putting one poem after another, you can use page breaks in Word. Set your cursor at the beginning of the poem or its title (if you have titles and put them above the poem). In the ribbon at the top, go to Insert > Page break. It’s that simple.
I also use page breaks between poems in the same section. Use a section break after all your introductory material (Title page, copyright page, dedication, table of contents, etc.). This allows you to start the page numbering at 1, even though you have pages before this in the book. Put the cursor at the bottom of the last page of introductory material, then go to Layout > Breaks > Section Breaks Odd Page. This will start the next section on an odd-numbered page, which is traditionally on the righthand side. I used an odd page section break before each section title in my book. You can consider starting the poems of each section on the next odd page as well, unless you’d rather not have another blank page on the reverse side of every section title page.
Page Numbers, Headers, and Footers
Now that you have all your pages and sections in place, you can insert page numbers. I prefer to put these in the footer of the page rather than the header, but if you’d rather have them in the header, that’s fine. Go to the page you want to appear as page 1. This should be the first page after a Section Break. Right click in the footer, click “Edit Footer” and the header and footer menu should open at the top of the program. Go to Page numbers and click “Format page numbers.” Make sure “Continue from previous section” is not clicked. Type “1” in the box that asks what number to start counting at. Click “OK” and then click on “Footer” in the page number menu (or “Header” if that’s where you’d like your page numbers). It is much easier to center your page numbers than try to alternate them on inside and outside corners.
Some books put the author’s name or book title in the header on every page, but I think this clutters up the page in a poetry book. You can alternate different text on odd pages or even pages, but you will have to check “Different Odd & Even Pages” under Options in the Header and Footer menu before typing your text. Traditionally, this type of text does not appear on section title pages or blank pages, so you will have to make sure you have the correct section breaks in place and might also have to select the “Different First Page” option in the Header and Footer menu. If you want text in your headers or footers, make sure you have the patience to play around with this for a while. I have found this to be the most time consuming and frustrating part of formatting when I formatted novels.
I also usually have to adjust the position of the header and footer. I think the default is 0.5 inch from the top and bottom. I change mine to 0.4 inch from the top and 0.3 inch from the bottom. You will have to adjust this for every section of the book, but I think it looks better. Play around with what looks best to you.
Poem Titles
Not everyone titles their poems, and some people put their titles at the end of the poem rather than the beginning. I am one who puts the titles at the beginning of the poem. If you do this as well, here is a trick to format all your titles at once rather than having to highlight them one by one and change the font and/or font size. (This trick will probably work for titles at the end of poems as well.)
Put your cursor anywhere on the same line as your title. It doesn’t matter if it’s at the beginning, the end, or somewhere in the middle of the title. In the menu ribbon at the top of Word, you should see a selection of “Styles” on the Home tab. If you have section titles, apply Heading 1 to every section title and Heading 2 to every poem title. If you don’t have sections, you can use Heading 1 for all the poems.
Now that you have applied these styles to all your titles, whether they’re sections or poems, you can change the font and formatting easily. In the bottom right corner of the Styles menu on the ribbon, click the button for the pop-up menu. From here, you can modify Heading 1 or 2 (whichever one you used). Once you’ve made your changes to font, size, and formatting, everything to which you’ve applied that heading style will be changed to match.
I use Headings all the time. I write every poem I post on Instagram into a Word document, use a Heading for the title, and open the Navigation pane on the side to easily jump from one poem to another. This is possibly the only area in my life in which I’m organized. Go to the “View” tab in the ribbon at the top of Word, and click “Navigation Page” in the “Show” section to show you a list of everything that has a heading style applied to it. We’ll revisit this in next week’s post about Formatting an E-Book.
Fonts
In the sample document I’ve attached to this post, I used Times New Roman because I figured that was a font everyone should have already on their computer. I used IM Fell in my book, as well as for all my posts on Instagram. I found this font on Canva, where I format my slides for IG, and I liked it so much that I downloaded it onto my computer from a free font website. When choosing a font for your book, it’s a good guideline not to use more than two fonts in the book and to use something that is easy to read. I’m also a fan of the Small Caps option for titles (where the whole word is in all capital letters, but the initial letters are larger).
You will have to embed your fonts into your document for printing. Unfortunately, my computer and/or my Word program has been finicky lately and I can’t get the menu to pop up so I can walk you through how to embed fonts. However, you should be able to find instructions easily if you search “How to embed fonts” online. KDP is usually good at embedding fonts for you if it hasn’t been done correctly, but if you rely on KDP to do it, it might throw off some of your formatting.
If you’re going to be fancy with fonts anywhere, do it on the title page. I spaced the title partway down the page and used a much larger size than anywhere else. An article I once read recommended using the same font on your title page as you use on the cover. Personally, I put readability over style for the book as a whole. Your content should be the star of the show, not the font or the formatting.
Print Preview
All three POD platforms I use allow you to check out what your book will look like after you upload the documents. If you’re not happy with them, you can make changes and upload the files again. Microsoft Word has a similar feature that allows you to check for random blank pages (which sometime appear when you use Odd Page Section Breaks). Click the “File” tab at the top and then click “Print.” Without having to print the document, you can scroll through to see how it looks. Depending on what version of Word you have and your screen size, it might even show you the facing pages next to each other. It’s easier to check your book this way without having to upload it, wait the five to ten minutes it sometimes takes for the POD platform to convert it, and then find things that don’t look right.
Proof Copy
I highly recommend ordering a proof copy before you publish your book. Despite all the double checks you do on your word processing program and the POD platforms’ previewers, there are some things you might not catch until you hold a copy in your hand. If you’re in the US, I recommend Nook Press for proof copies rather than KDP. I was reckless with my last book and did not order any proof copies, but I don’t think Nook Press puts a watermark on the cover the way Amazon does. At least, they didn’t the last time I ordered a proof from them a few years ago. When you order a proof copy from KDP, it comes with a band printed all around the cover that says “Not for Sale.” However, to be extra sure your book will print the way you expect it, order a proof from every POD platform you want to use. There are slight differences, and you might have made different choices of matte cover vs. glossy cover or white paper vs. cream paper from one platform to another.
You will also want to order a proof copy far enough in advance of your expected publication date. There are shipping delays, and I did not even have the option to pay for expedited shipping when I placed orders for author copies last month. I hit Publish on KDP on March 13th to be sure my book would be live by March 17th, ordered 5 copies on the 13th, and didn’t receive them until March 30th. I got my Nook Press author copy within ten days, though.
Next
Of course, you won’t be able to order a proof copy without providing a cover art file. Next week’s post will talk about how to format your book as an e-book. Poetry books are harder to format as e-books than novels, short stories, or essays. The post after that will discuss how I created my cover art for both the paperback and e-book versions of my book, and the final post in the series will talk about submitting your book for publication through POD publishers and making it available for people to buy. Follow my blog to be notified when I post next, or you can bookmark this page and regularly check back for new links to be added.
Woodland Spirits
If you’re interested in my book of poetry that I’ve been referencing, check out this page. My debut poetry collection, Woodland Spirits, is available now in paperback and e-book. If you’re finding some value in this series of posts about publishing your own poetry book, I would greatly appreciate if you would pick up a copy of mine.
Michelle Wicklow 